List of airports and total gate numbers!

[bobg]

Puddle Jumpers and regional jets just confuse the matter altogether.

For example Denver has 136 gate numbers on the graphic (only 106 of the gate numbers are used), but has positions for up to 150 aircraft because the regional gates share gate numbers. Another example I flew from Burlington VT to LaGuardia last week and the regional jet I was on shared a gate in NYC with about 5 other aircraft. On the way out to Burlington from Denver I transferred at DTW and each regional jet had it's own gate. So in the case of DTW gate number is more accurate, and in the case of New York and Denver it under-counts the airplane capacity.

Not sure how Miami or Atlanta handle the puddle jumper/regional jet gates. But that type of traffic IMO is not necessarily more prevalent at Caribbean hubs due to almost every small city throughout the US having at least one commercial flight to the nearest hub.

[atlantaguy]

Originally Posted by denizen467

Can I hypothesize that any airport serving as a hub to the Caribbean gets an artificial boost in number of gates, because if they were connected by land then all those island destinations would use just a couple airports rather than dozens. As it is, practically every non-trivial isle gets its own schedule of (smaller) flights serving it, requiring more (smaller) gates at ATL, MIA, etc.

Imagine, for example, if all vacationers/pensioners from the whole US going to anywhere in central Florida had to use 20 different airports rather than just Orlando and Tampa. Or if nobody going to Napa, Sonoma, San Francisco, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Jose, Santa Cruz, etc., etc., etc. could choose any airport other than one immediately next to their destination, rather than all taking large aircraft to just one or two major airports (SFO and, say, San Jose) as they do. Very simplified examples.

Huh? I'm not sure I understand your point.

There is no artificial boost in the number of gates at ATL. Delta is actually cutting the number of RJ's they operate, partly as a result of purchasing all 86 of AirTran's 717's and partly because they are simply too expensive to operate with oil at over $100 a barrel.

ATL is what it is. It takes a lot of gates to handle over 95 million passengers a year.

[Rail Claimore]

Delta has been upgauging a lot of service out of Atlanta in recent years: total movements have decreased while passenger counts have increased. This is the airport that sees more 757's and 767's than any other, after all.

My guess is that DFW will see a similar change over the next few years as US merges with AA and flights are cut from Phoenix.

[denizen467]

Originally Posted by atlantaguy

Huh? I'm not sure I understand your point.
. . .
ATL is what it is.

^ ^^I'm not sure you digested my question. Your arguments help prove my point - because they are demonstrably irrelevant to Caribbean geography.

Here is a more concrete illustration:
(higher res)


For example, St Thomas and St Croix must be served by multiple routes, because they are islands. If these were continental resorts, they would more likely be served by only 1 route - especially if, as you say, smaller aircraft are getting unprofitable. Similarly, St Maarten, St Kitts, and Antigua are clustered too and 3 routes would, on the continent, have pressure to become just 1 route, with travelers just renting a car and continuing to their destination.

And this map covers only Delta; I have no idea what other less bigger players are serving the Caribbean out of ATL. For example, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, are in a similar cluster.

The trend of upgauging would reduce the number of direct flights out of ATL to these islands - as it has presumably reduced overall flights out of other hubs around the country - but it cannot (so long as the airline doesn't abandon the locations). Vacationers want to fly into the island of their destination, they cannot fly into a central airport and rent a car to their destination, as people do on the continent.

[fflint]

Orange County (John Wayne) Airport has 27 gates, as shown on the airport website's map.

Long Beach Airport has 14 gates, according to Wikipedia.

Burbank (Bob Hope) Airport also has 14 gates, according to Wikipedia.

[MNMike]

This is pretty interesting...MSP airport is pretty massive, Northwest really built it up, and it has remained a very busy hub....so glad that Delta hasn't slashed flights! We are getting more international destinations...and another Paris flight this summer by Air France. 10 more gates will be added to terminal 2 in the near future, so that will bring MSP up to 137...all of the 127 current gates are used.

I remember way back in the day, when MSP was one of the busiest airports in the world! Back then, most of the busiest airports on that list were in the US...how quickly things change! And I am only 32. lol. I do miss Northwest. We still have Sun Country at least.



And the baby terminal...2...where 10 gates will be added soon. So awesome to fly out of here, because it is so much smaller.


http://www.mspairport.com/

[atlantaguy]

Originally Posted by denizen467

^ ^^I'm not sure you digested my question. Your arguments help prove my point - because they are demonstrably irrelevant to Caribbean geography.

Here is a more concrete illustration:
(higher res)


For example, St Thomas and St Croix must be served by multiple routes, because they are islands. If these were continental resorts, they would more likely be served by only 1 route - especially if, as you say, smaller aircraft are getting unprofitable. Similarly, St Maarten, St Kitts, and Antigua are clustered too and 3 routes would, on the continent, have pressure to become just 1 route, with travelers just renting a car and continuing to their destination.

And this map covers only Delta; I have no idea what other less bigger players are serving the Caribbean out of ATL. For example, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, are in a similar cluster.

The trend of upgauging would reduce the number of direct flights out of ATL to these islands - as it has presumably reduced overall flights out of other hubs around the country - but it cannot (so long as the airline doesn't abandon the locations). Vacationers want to fly into the island of their destination, they cannot fly into a central airport and rent a car to their destination, as people do on the continent.

So your point is that because of the impressive amount of flights to Caribbean destinations, Atlanta's gate count is artificially inflated? I find that to be a very bizarre theory. You do realize that a lot of these destinations are served less than daily?

Using the same logic, I could claim that O'Hare has an artificially inflated gate count due to the army of RJ's that fly to places like Green Bay, Peoria, Traverse City, Duluth, etc.

[Rail Claimore]

Originally Posted by denizen467

^ ^^I'm not sure you digested my question. Your arguments help prove my point - because they are demonstrably irrelevant to Caribbean geography.

Here is a more concrete illustration:
(higher res)


For example, St Thomas and St Croix must be served by multiple routes, because they are islands. If these were continental resorts, they would more likely be served by only 1 route - especially if, as you say, smaller aircraft are getting unprofitable. Similarly, St Maarten, St Kitts, and Antigua are clustered too and 3 routes would, on the continent, have pressure to become just 1 route, with travelers just renting a car and continuing to their destination.

And this map covers only Delta; I have no idea what other less bigger players are serving the Caribbean out of ATL. For example, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, are in a similar cluster.

The trend of upgauging would reduce the number of direct flights out of ATL to these islands - as it has presumably reduced overall flights out of other hubs around the country - but it cannot (so long as the airline doesn't abandon the locations). Vacationers want to fly into the island of their destination, they cannot fly into a central airport and rent a car to their destination, as people do on the continent.

Why would having a single or maybe two hubs in the Caribbean be more profitable than having non-stops from a hub on the mainland, especially one that gets enough O&D and connecting traffic to justify all those routes in the first place? If that was indeed the case, then I could buy your argument, but I don't see how the gate number is somehow "artificially inflated" just because of all those routes to the Caribbean, many of which lave less-than-daily service. Couldn't the same argument be made for all the little and mid-size cities throughout the South that are served by ATL? Or the same for the Midwestern cities and ORD, or Texas/Great Plains cities and DFW? If anything, many other hub airports have more gates than they need simply by looking at the passengers per gate figures that were posted earlier in this thread. LAX and ATL basically beat every other hub airport in the country that stats have been posted for. But no one is making the case that ORD or DFW have an artificially-inflated number of gates.

EDIT: Okay, it's late but I re-read what you wrote and understand your argument. But even if all those destinations were consolidated, assuming that magically all those islands were somehow connected by land, it would eliminate the need for maybe 4 or 5 gates at the most. Lots of people who vacation in Florida fly through Atlanta as well, yet all those beach cities along the coasts throughout the state are connected to each other by road. And all those cities are served with multiple flights per day through Atlanta. The only reason Tampa, Orlando, Miami, and Ft Lauderdale receive the bulk of traffic is simply because they're bigger cities and bigger destinations for tourists.

[Octavian]

Originally Posted by Rail Claimore

Why would having a single or maybe two hubs in the Caribbean be more profitable than having non-stops from a hub on the mainland, especially one that gets enough O&D and connecting traffic to justify all those routes in the first place? If that was indeed the case, then I could buy your argument, but I don't see how the gate number is somehow "artificially inflated" just because of all those routes to the Caribbean, many of which lave less-than-daily service. Couldn't the same argument be made for all the little and mid-size cities throughout the South that are served by ATL? Or the same for the Midwestern cities and ORD, or Texas/Great Plains cities and DFW? If anything, many other hub airports have more gates than they need simply by looking at the passengers per gate figures that were posted earlier in this thread. LAX and ATL basically beat every other hub airport in the country that stats have been posted for. But no one is making the case that ORD or DFW have an artificially-inflated number of gates.

EDIT: Okay, it's late but I re-read what you wrote and understand your argument. But even if all those destinations were consolidated, assuming that magically all those islands were somehow connected by land, it would eliminate the need for maybe 4 or 5 gates at the most. Lots of people who vacation in Florida fly through Atlanta as well, yet all those beach cities along the coasts throughout the state are connected to each other by road. And all those cities are served with multiple flights per day through Atlanta. The only reason Tampa, Orlando, Miami, and Ft Lauderdale receive the bulk of traffic is simply because they're bigger cities and bigger destinations for tourists.

I think what he's saying is that since they are islands, first there is no auto competition and second, that if they were on the mainland, because they are so close together, what would probably happen is that the airlines would fly a bigger plane to only one of the destinations. I think some of the clusters of the Caribbean islands are closer together than the midwest destinations.

Not saying that there would be less passengers, only that airlines would move them with different equipment. The fact that they are islands means servicing them requires more gates and aircraft.

At the end of the day, Atlanta still serves 95 million passengers per year.

[atlantaguy]

Originally Posted by Octavian

I think what he's saying is that since they are islands, first there is no auto competition and second, that if they were on the mainland, because they are so close together, what would probably happen is that the airlines would fly a bigger plane to only one of the destinations. I think some of the clusters of the Caribbean islands are closer together than the midwest destinations.

Not saying that there would be less passengers, only that airlines would move them with different equipment. The fact that they are islands means servicing them requires more gates and aircraft.

At the end of the day, Atlanta still serves 95 million passengers per year.

I also think he assumes that these Caribbean routes are flown with RJ's. None of them are - it's a mix of 737's, 757's, MD88's and A320's.

[Lakelander]

Originally Posted by Octavian

I think what he's saying is that since they are islands, first there is no auto competition and second, that if they were on the mainland, because they are so close together, what would probably happen is that the airlines would fly a bigger plane to only one of the destinations. I think some of the clusters of the Caribbean islands are closer together than the midwest destinations.

In theory that makes sense. However, that's not the case in Central Florida. Despite everything being within a 1.5 to 2 hour drive from Orlando, the region still has seven passenger airports (had 8 until Direct Air filed for bankruptcy last year). Out of those seven, five have more than 10 gates. When I lived in Lakeland, one of the major benefits was that I could search for cheap fares by playing with the scheduling/destinations served by multiple airports within an hour's drive.

[Cirrus]

Just saying hello to the thread while on a 4 hour layover at LAX, mid way between Washington Dulles and Honolulu.

[atlantaguy]

^Have a great trip, Cirrus! I'm guessing United?

[BrennanW]

Originally Posted by atlantaguy

^Have a great trip, Cirrus! I'm guessing United?

Could also be AA.

Cheers/

[losername]

Calgary will be up to 66 gates with the new international terminal under construction (open 2015)

[denizen467]

Originally Posted by Lakelander

In theory that makes sense. However, that's not the case in Central Florida. Despite everything being within a 1.5 to 2 hour drive from Orlando, the region still has seven passenger airports (had 8 until Direct Air filed for bankruptcy last year). Out of those seven, five have more than 10 gates. When I lived in Lakeland, one of the major benefits was that I could search for cheap fares by playing with the scheduling/destinations served by multiple airports within an hour's drive.

Thanks to folks who gave my idea some thought. I am unfamiliar with traffic numbers/frequency to the Caribbean, and unfamiliar with what airlines serve which destinations (other than the route map I posted), so that's why I put the question out there. I didn't intend to limit the idea to Delta at Atlanta, so whether the effect is greater in Miami, or what's going on with other airlines, might be still unaddressed here. But regardless, learning from Rail Claimore that some locations have less than daily service, I see the effect could be quite small, like on the magnitude of a handful of gates, as he posited.

Originally Posted by denizen467

Which major airports still use "bus gates" ?

Has this been discussed recently anywhere? Is there even a way of knowing - just looking at terminal maps it may be near impossible to tell, so relying on personal experience might be necessary? Or you could use satellite photos of airports and look for evidence on the tarmac, like moving buses, lined-up airstairs, or active loading/unloading.

[OfCourse]

Harlingen, TX (HRL) - 7 gates

[BnaBreaker]

Nashville International: 47

Memphis International: 83

[emathias]

Originally Posted by mthd

when it's running on schedule with no work on the line or problems, it's really not bad. less than 40 minutes. i used to use it all the time, but after a few 1:30 trips for no clear reason, i gave up. is it back to "normal" ?

It's back to normal now. Under 45 minutes every time I've ridden it this year (and I've been going back and forth between Boston and Chicago a lot, so I've ridden it numerous times).

[unusualfire]

Originally Posted by BnaBreaker

Nashville International: 47

Memphis International: 83

Delta just dropped Memphis as a hub.